Book Review: Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World through Islamic Eyes, by Tamim Ansary

[inverarity]

The history of Islam told as a narrative, not as an apologetic, an indictment, or a treatise.

Comments

[paulliver]

I am a little puzzled by the title "Destiny Interrupted." What destiny did he think Islamic culture would achieve?

[ext_2137784]

It's the Islamic culture's perception of it's own destiny, almost all sufficiently powerful cultures develop one, and it takes more than a century or two of defeat and decline to eradicate it.

[paulliver]

Ah, yes, it is hard to give up the dream, historically or personally.

[tealterror0]

It's not hard to imagine a world where the Middle East, and not the West, became the dominant world power. That it didn't is probably not due to anything inherent in the culture or religion, but because of contingent historical circumstance.

[paulliver]

I think it had something to do with the Mongolians running rampant over most of Asia, and then divisions among Europeans leading to competition leading to advances in technology and warfare. Which is a long way of agreeing with you, in my mind.

[tealterror0]

It's hard, if not impossible, to say with any degree of certainty what the reasons were. The Black Plague certainly obliterated much of Europe, and it's not like there weren't divisions among the Muslims (I think there were three competing Caliphs at one point), Chinese (warring states period), etc. Personally, I think a more fruitful approach might be investigating why European-style cities arose, as well as why ideological revolutions such as the Protestant Reformation or the Investiture Controversy took place--but that's just a personal opinion at this point.

[ext_2137784]

In "The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers" it's explained by the geography of the continent of europe- it's so divided and criss-crossed by natural barriers such as rivers, mountain chains and inland seas that it is nigh impossible for a single power to dominate the continent for long. This means that, rather than a handful of empires that expand like ideal gasses between far flung natural barriers that existed in the great plains and deserts of asia and the Americas, Europe has always had numerous smaller states in constant military and economic competition with each other, forcing these states to devise new technology and organizational methods to compete with one another. There are also some more mundane geographical factors that give europe an advantage- the temperate and wet climate of northern europe is ideal for an organized agricultural society, the long coastline and abundance of good harbours and navigable rivers- Europe has 50% more coastline than Africa etc.

[tealterror0]

Yeah, I've read Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel which argued similarly. There is something to be said for the geographical explanations, but I don't think they tell the whole story. Diamond himself admitted in the book that he didn't really know why China never took over the world, and offered some relatively half-assed suggestions that weren't terribly convincing to me.

I have several problems with the "Europe has always had numerous small states" explanation (which was Diamond's as well). First is the one given above: the Muslim world and China have often contained competing states. Second, it assumes innovation-generating conflict can only take place between states; there's no inherent reason why a country couldn't devise new technology as a result of factions within it competing for power. Third, and relatedly, it to an extent projects the nation-state model back throughout history; before really recently, most power was held by local lords and power-brokers and the state had to constantly battle these people for authority